Chippewa Valley buses go high-tech to cut down on troublemakers

Chippewa Valley Schools has adopted a new $3,500 computer program designed to streamline the way the district's 73 bus drivers write up disruptive and abusive students and get the information to the appropriate school officials.

Instead of writing out the offense on one page that has three carbon copies and is distributed to four individuals, drivers now can type vital information on a computer.

The information describes the type of problem that arose involving a student and sends the information via email to the principal of the school the student attends, the transportation office, administration office and the student's parents, according to Brendan Wagner, director of pupil transportation for Chippewa Valley.

"The new system will serve the same purpose as our old system but it will get the information quicker to the parties involved and they will be able to read the violation in a clean, crisp manner," Wagner said.

Bus Conduct, the cloud-based behavior management tracking software was designed to help bus drivers communicate the misconduct in a clear manner. Once examined, the principal notifies the transportation office of any pending discipline.

The program, which can create bilingual incident reports, tracks student conduct problems and keeps statistical reports for school officials to review.

Wagner said Chippewa Valley is the first district in Macomb County to invest in the new program. With 16,300 students, Chippewa Valley is Macomb County's second largest school district and serves Clinton and Macomb townships.

He said Chippewa Valley bus drivers have the ability to log onto a computer in the transportation office or type it out on their home computers, iPads or iPhones.

"Bus drivers can log into the program from any computer," Wagner said. "The lag time on this program is a lot less from when the incident occurred to the time notification is made. Not only that, all parties involved can read it."

Bus drivers first notify the school principal by email that a report is forthcoming. Then the bus driver enters the incident in his own words and sends it on to the appropriate people.

"It also helps by keeping a running history on the involved student," Wagner said. "Once a report is made, it follows the student all the way through school."

As part of the program, a student seating chart has been developed and downloaded into the computer. The only time the seating chart changes is when a student cannot get along with the child with whom he or she is sharing a seat.

Wagner said the same system is used by airlines to seat customers.

"This eliminates paper forms," Wagner said. The driver is allowed to establish seating changes online that can be viewed and revised by building administrators."